Would Hector show up? Would he act like no epic moonlit kiss had happened between us? And if he did, would I be able to refrain from bludgeoning him to death in frustration?
“I think that’s them,” Callie said, looking out the lobby doors to the sidewalk.
She was right. Hector’s car had pulled up. I watched as he got out and took Gabriela’s wheelchair from the trunk. It felt so weird to watch him opening her door and assisting her into the chair. So weird because it was so normal, when it felt like everything had changed.
Then Hector straightened and looked up the walkway to the lobby. Looked directly into my eyes, as if he knew I’d been watching. My heart stopped. He raised a hand, the expression on his face completely neutral. Then he got back into his car and drove away, and I miraculously managed to neither collapse on the lobby floor nor go running after him.
Albert held the door for Gabriela. “Good evening, my dear.”
“Hi Albert, hi everyone.” She looked at me. “Hector sends his apologies. He had something he couldn’t get out of.”
Which is right about the time I stopped feeling weird and self-conscious about Hector. I started feeling something different. I started feeling furious.
Chapter 20
My follow-up interview with Kristy would have to wait. She was a no-show for the séance.
“She’s off playing the game,” Monica told me when she arrived with Abby. “Along with half the city, from the looks of it out there.”
“Half the world,” Abby said. She was wearing the same green multi-pocketed jacket that she’d worn to the midnight movie. “At least, the under-thirty half. Running around in the dark without looking where they’re going. They’re liable to get themselves killed.”
“Well I’m glad you guys could make it,” I told them. “Everybody else is already inside.”
We entered the auditorium, and I had to admit, the place looked suitably atmospheric. The house lights were down, with only a few freestanding lamps on the stage providing light. There’s nothing like a near-empty, near-dark theater with almost a hundred years of history to get a person’s imagination going. The few remaining flecks of gold leaf glinted on the detailed art deco woodwork surrounding the stage. The balcony was shrouded in mysterious darkness. The back recesses of the stage were dim and shadowy.
Never mind that the ghost we were trying to conjure was one of the brightest, bubbliest people I’d ever met. The stage was set for old-school spiritualism.
Earlier that day I’d raised the movie screen and hauled the battered round table down from the break room to the big empty stage. I’d gone to a neighborhood fabric store for a length of dark blue velvet that I’d draped over the table before surrounding it with mismatched chairs.
I’d been nervous at the thought of how many candles Lillian might bring, given the fact that there had been a fire on the stage a few months ago. But it turned out she only had three large white pillars that she placed in the center of the table. She hadn’t lit them yet.
“What’s she doing?” Monica whispered as we walked down the center aisle to the stage.
“Purifying the space,” I whispered back, feeling ridiculous.
Earlier Lillian had produced something that looked like a rough cigar, which she’d informed us was a sage wand. She’d lit one end until it smoldered, and was currently waving the aromatic smoke all over the stage. When Abby, Monica, and I walked up the ramp to join everyone, she waved it over us as well. Which was fine. A little purification couldn’t hurt. Although, in my experience, Trixie was more drawn by the scent of fresh popcorn.
Monica coughed discretely, but Abby closed her eyes and raised her arms as the smoke circled her, seeming to get into the spirit of the thing.
“Are we all here?” Lillian asked. “Let’s begin.”
Callie joined us at the table, her expression guarded. Her cameras, three of them, were set up on tripods around the table and were already filming.
I was increasingly nervous as we all took our seats. Albert was on my left. Next to him was Lillian, then Abby, Gabriela, Callie, and Monica, who was on my right. I was nervous not because of what might happen, but because of what might not.
There was no sign of Trixie.
I knew that even if she showed up, the others still probably wouldn’t see her. Trixie had tried to show herself to Albert, Callie, and just about everyone else who’d hung around the Palace in the last eighty-plus years. So far, I was the only one who had ever really seen her, and that was after I’d been conked on the head by a broken light the first day I met her. I truly wanted her to be able to make contact tonight, but I wasn’t counting on it. I didn’t think Lillian planned to conk anyone on the head.
“We are seven,” Lillian began, her voice suitably dramatic, “which is a very auspicious number for contacting the spirits. In Chinese, the number seven—chi—sounds like the word for ‘vital energy,’ and the seventh month is the ‘ghost month,’ when spirits are known to visit earth.” She looked around at us. “There are seven days in the week, seven stars in the Pleiades, seven wonders of the ancient world. In Christianity there are seven gifts of the holy spirit, and seven deadly sins.”
I couldn’t help but wonder if she’d have had similar facts if all nine of us had shown up.
“I believe we are seven for a reason tonight,” she continued. “There is power in seven.”
I thought I heard the tiniest sigh coming from Callie’s direction.
“Now, some guidelines to remember,” Lillian said. “We need to be very clear in our intention. We gather here to contact the ghosts of the Palace. But once we enter the spiritual plane, there’s no saying who might try to contact us.” She looked meaningfully around the table. “We need to enter into this circle with only love in our hearts.”
Across from me, Abby compressed her lips into a firm line and nodded.
“I’m sure everyone at this table has experienced loss,” Lillian continued. “We all have someone on the other side. Some more than others.” She placed her hand over Albert’s briefly. “We must remain open to all possibilities.”
Because I just happened to be looking across the table, I caught a flash of something in Abby’s expression. Pain? Longing? Was there someone she was hoping to contact? Someone she’d lost? Someone who wasn’t a chatty usherette?
“When we light the candles, our journey will begin,” Lillian said. “Please do not attempt to speak to me once I begin initiating contact. The thread between the worlds is very fragile.”
We all nodded, and I was reminded, suddenly, of Madame Arcati, the batty medium who holds a séance in Blithe Spirit (1945, Rex Harrison, and Margaret Rutherford as the medium.) I realized with a start something I’d never put together before. When I’d gotten conked on the head in the balcony that day, Blithe Spirit had been playing onscreen. Specifically, the séance scene. Had that had something to do with why I could see Trixie afterward?
More importantly, where was Trixie?
Lillian stood, and produced a silver filigreed matchbox from a pocket in the folds of her lacy dress. She lit the three thick candles, intoning “Light in the darkness” each time a wick took the flame.
She sat and held her hands out to Albert and Abby, indicating that we should all hold hands. We did, forming a circle around the table and waiting for what would happen next.
What happened next was humming. Lillian closed her eyes and began making a tuneless droning sound. The rest of us glanced around uncomfortably, not sure if we should close our eyes as well. While we were still figuring it out, Lillian’s humming found a melody. It took me a minute, but then I thought I recognized it, improbably, as the old folk song “Mockingbird.” I had no idea why she’d chosen that song, but the tune, beginning with “Hush little baby, don’t say a word…” was definitely what she was humming. I looked around to see if anyone else had picked up on
it, but everybody’s eyes were closed except Abby’s. She was staring wide-eyed at Lillian.
Then, suddenly, the humming stopped and Lillian’s eyes flew open.
“I sense a spirit!”
She wasn’t wrong. Out in the auditorium, Trixie had appeared at the far end of the center aisle, and was walking slowly toward the stage, her hands held out in front of her like she was a hypnotized bride in a Boris Karloff movie. My initial surge of relief faded when she got closer and I saw that her eyes were closed. It looked like she was being drawn to us. Had Lillian actually summoned her?
I swallowed, worried that the séance had done something to Trixie. I’d assumed it couldn’t do any harm, but what did I know? Trixie looked like she’d been possessed as she walked slowly up the ramp to the stage. The gold braid of her uniform winked in the flickering light, her cap was at its usual jaunty angle on her curls, but there was no, for lack of a better word, life to her.
I could tell by the way they were all glancing around nervously that nobody else saw her, but Lillian shivered. “You are welcome here, Spirit,” she said.
Trixie stood still. Then one eye squinted open as she took a peek at her surroundings. When it was clear I was the only one who could see her, she opened both eyes, putting her hands on her hips and tossing an errant blond curl out of her eyes. “Why, I should hope to say I’m welcome here!”
I sagged in relief.
“Come on, now, no fooling!” Trixie stamped a petite foot. “Can’t anybody else see me at all? I made that whole entrance and everything. I looked just like Elsa Lanchester. I know I did!”
Everyone else was still looking around for an apparition, oblivious to the outburst of the exasperated ghost in their midst.
The ghost looked at me and sighed. “Hi, Nora. Isn’t this something? All that fuss and nothing works.”
“Spirit, have no fear!” Lillian commanded. I realized I was the only one at the table not looking toward her expectantly.
“’Course I don’t have any fear,” Trixie said. She approached the table, pausing between Abby and Gabriela. “Hello!” she yelled, waving. “Olly-olly-oxen-free!”
She put her hands on the shoulders of the women on either side of her. Abby didn’t seem to notice, but Gabriela reacted immediately. She looked in Trixie’s direction. “I think I feel something.”
“That’s good,” I said, encouraging Trixie.
She jumped with excitement. “She feels me, Nora!” She turned all her attention on Gabriela, bending to wrap her in the same sort of hug she’d used on Lillian the other day in the lobby.
“It’s cold,” Gabriela said. “It’s really cold. Is that—”
“The spirit is manifesting!” Lillian said joyfully.
“Nora! It’s working!” Trixie exclaimed. She’d moved from Gabriela and was now hugging Callie, to no visible effect. Then she went around the table, trying Monica, Albert, and finally Lillian.
“I sense you, Spirit!” Lillian said. “Show yourself!”
“Well, gee!” Trixie said. “What the heck do you think I’ve been doing? I’m right here.”
I muffled a laugh, which got me reproving looks from Albert and Abby. Trixie waved her hand in front of Lillian’s face. “Right here!” she bellowed. “It’s me! Trixie! Nice to meet you!” She moved around the table again. “Albert! Even you can’t see me? Callie! I’m right here!” She walked through Callie’s cameras, turning once to wave at the lens. “Hello! Anybody?”
She was getting more and more worked up, her frustration painfully evident. I couldn’t take it anymore.
“Trixie!” I called.
Everyone, including Trixie, turned to stare at me.
I swallowed. “Is the ghost of Beatrix George among us?” I asked solemnly.
“Oh! Nora! That’s brilliant!” Trixie came back to the table.
“She’s here!” Lillian proclaimed. “I feel her energy.”
Trixie pointed at her. “She feels me.”
“Trixie,” I deepened my voice. “Can you give us a sign?”
Her mouth formed an “O.” “That’ll show them. What should I do? Should I move something?” Her eyes darted around. “The matches?”
I knew that, with great effort, Trixie was sometimes capable of moving physical objects. I owed my life to that ability. Now she went over to Lillian and put both hands around the silver matchbox on the table. She concentrated, her penciled brows coming together, biting her bottom lip. Then, with a mighty grunt, she moved her hands.
The matchbox stayed in place.
“Darn it all!” Trixie fell halfway through the table with her effort. “What’s the matter with me? Why can’t—”
“Trixie,” I said urgently, “if it’s you, and if you’re here, put out the candles.”
She straightened, staring at me, her look of frustration slowly replaced by a determination I’d only seen once before.
“I know you can do it, Trixie,” I told her. “I believe in you. We believe in you.”
We were all still holding hands around the table, and everyone began murmuring “we believe in you” together, turning it into a chant.
“I can do it,” Trixie told me. “I know I can.”
I nodded.
She moved to stand between Lillian and Albert, then she leaned forward, raising her hands over the candle flames. As she lowered her hands, the three candles, one by one, winked out.
“Holy shit! Mom!” Callie jumped to her feet, breaking the circle, as pandemonium broke out on the stage.
“I did it!” Trixie yelled, jumping in excitement.
“What just happened?” Monica shouted.
“Beatrix!” Lillian bellowed. “Beatrix George, show yourself!”
Albert stood, a searching look on his face. “Trixie? Is it really you?”
“It is!” Trixie shouted. “It’s me! And I’m here!” She turned to me, pulsating with joy. “I’m here!” she said again, triumphant.
And then—poof—she vanished.
Chapter 21
“Who else could use a drink?” I asked.
The séance had effectively ended as soon as the candles went out. Trixie had disappeared, and Lillian could sense it.
“The fragile thread has been broken,” she announced, speaking above everyone’s excited chatter. “The spirit has left us.”
Trixie had gone poof. But she’d gone poof happier than I’d ever seen her. I hoped she’d be back soon. I couldn’t wait to talk to her about it.
Monica, Gabriela, and Abby surrounded Lillian, exchanging notes on what they’d just experienced. Callie turned her back on us and started doing something with her cameras. I looked to Albert, worried that it might all have been too much for him, and found him regarding me with a thoughtful expression on his face.
Before I could go over to him, Monica broke away from the cluster around Lillian. “Did you say something about a drink?” she asked me.
“At least one,” I said.
A while later we found ourselves in the lobby, seated at various levels on the balcony stairs. We could have gotten the chairs from the stage, but it didn’t feel like anyone wanted to go back into the auditorium. So to the stairs it was, where we talked ourselves out, drank wine from paper cups, and devoured a shocking amount of candy from the concessions stand. Something about our brush with the supernatural had made everyone crave chocolate.
Lillian was still on a high, although she was quick to share her triumph with me.
“It’s clear you have a gift,” she told me earnestly. “You must work to develop it. Who knows what kind of contact you might be able to make with the proper training?”
“Who knows?” I agreed.
At one point Abby went to the concessions stand, saying she needed a cup of tea. I followed.
“Are you okay?” I asked her,
remembering the look of rapt attention she’d had on her face during the séance. We were far enough from the others that I didn’t think we’d be overheard. “I know this was all pretty intense.”
She nodded, dropping a tea bag into a paper cup. “Very. I wasn’t sure what to expect.”
“Can I ask you, when Lillian was humming that song it seemed like…”
She looked at me, tears suddenly filling her eyes. “My son loved that song when he was a baby. I used to sing it to him all the time.”
Oh. She had a son. And she referred to him in the past tense.
“When did you lose him?” I asked quietly.
“Three years ago. It was a hit-and-run. I still can’t quite…” She turned away, fussing with the hot water valve on the coffee maker.
“Abby, I’m so sorry,” I said.
“They never caught the driver,” she told me. “Nobody was ever punished. Nobody paid for what they did to my boy.”
“That’s awful.” I had no idea how else to respond.
Abby exhaled. “I’ve learned that you have to do whatever you can to go on,” she said. “Tonight that meant attending a séance.” She glanced at me. “Usually, it means focusing on my work. The relief I can provide people is a great comfort to me.”
“I’m sure it is,” I said.
“And I think my boy approves,” she said. “I think that’s why Lillian hummed that song. I think he was…” She looked up. “Here. With me.”
Who was I to say she was wrong? “I think he’s probably always with you,” I told her. I also thought Lillian’s humming was the sort of maybe-coincidence-maybe-not thing that kept mediums in business, but what did I know? I’d only ever met one ghost.
Abby wiped her eyes. “You’re very sweet.” She reached into one of the many pockets of her jacket. “Please, I’d like you to have this.” She handed me a green bottle about the size of my pinkie finger, topped with an eyedropper cap. I recognized it as one of her blended cannabinoid tinctures. “It’s a simple mixture of my own, and I’ve found it does wonders to help me sleep. Something tells me you could use a little help getting to sleep.”
Movie Palace Cozy Mystery Boxed Set: Books 1-3 Page 63
